CREATIVE CLARITY IN THE MIDST OF AMBIGUITY...Did we test this with enoug ople? What’s the price point? How do we know people will pay that much? What are the leads for schools that

CREATIVE CLARITY

© 2017 Modernist Studio

CREATIVE CLARITYIN THE MIDST OF AMBIGUITY

SH*T SH*W

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34 secrets!

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“Yellow is known as an optimistic color and can stimulate creativity.”

— Entrepreneur Magazine

Make things yellow.

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3 4

1 2

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Let them run

AMOKDrive a

VISION

Acknowledge

FEELINGSTame

AMBIGUITY

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Acknowledge

FEELINGS

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“Everyone is naturally creative.”— Every TED talk ever

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I made a thing.

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I put everything I had into making it.

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It was really hard to make.

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Everyone elsemade things too.

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My thing is not as good as their things.

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My thing is bad.

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I am bad.

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I give up.

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I give up.I will double-down and fight for this bad thing as much as I can,

so that I am no longer bad.

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Iteration Critique

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Critique

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CritiqueBAD!

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“The personalities in creative fields tend to be more self-critical.

I look at a bunch of nurses; are they like, ‘Am I inserting this catheter right?’ and then beating themselves up about that for days?”

— Evan TorchinDesign Manager, Apple

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Shortcut self-critique with group-critique.

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Iteration Critique

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Iteration Critique

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Constraints Iteration Critique

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“I want to create an environment that's professionally safe.”

— Judy SiegelDirector of User Experience, MSNBC Digital

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Focus on building trust as much as you focus on building craft.

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THE WORK


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THE WORK


EVERYTHING ELSE

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THE WORK

EVERYTHING ELSE

30%

70%

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“Instead of taking someone that is free and putting them on a ‘What If’ project, have

them go work on a book.

Who doesn't like having a book with pictures of you in it?”

— Mike KruzeniskiSenior Director of Design, Twitter

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Build trust by filling the 70% with value. Make an artifact with and about the team.

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Let them run

AMOKDrive a

VISION

Acknowledge

FEELINGSTame

AMBIGUITY

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Tame

AMBIGUITY

roar

and. What about high school students? Will this work in different countries? Make it smaller. What if we make it smaller?ink it’s going to scare schools. I don’t know if people want this. Will students pay for it? How do we monetize it? The dataally valuable. What joint partnerships are there? I think our competitors are launching a similar product. I’m not sure thais fits with the core product suite, and if we launch it as part of that offering, we might annoy and scare current customersave you socialized this with marketing? I don’t know if our brand accurately communicates that this will work. What if won’t ship on time? I think the window of opportunity for success is closing. We need this to be ready for our annuanference. Make it green. Green isn’t part of our brand palette. Students like green. Have we focus-grouped this? How du know it will work? We’re not ready for the financial part. Our customers aren’t ready for the financial part. Financiaanning makes our customers scared, because they might lost their students. Where does the data come from? Is the datcurate? We need API hooks to our customers. Where do we form the IT relationships inside of the school? I just don’t thinis is going to work. I wasn’t informed of this. Have you talked to the go to market groups to make sure they know what thee selling? It seems like this is really similar to another product we’re incubating. Why didn’t you talk to the incubation team

don’t think that flow is going to make sense to students. What if a student takes more than one major? What if a studenes to more than one school? I haven’t seen a list of requirements. Are you even working off a list of requirements? Letake the whole thing on an ipad. Do we support Windows Phone? I thought they were eliminating that device. I don’t thinllege students have phones. Will this work in Internet Explorer? I think we should launch soon. Are there bugs? What’s thcklog look like? Make it blue. I’m still unsure that this will succeed. We need to somehow make sure that we have mitigatek. I’m taking off three weeks, so I won’t be answering email. Our bug tracking system is down. Adobe seems to have turnef Creative Cloud. Our license for the Adobe products expired. How do I submit an expense report for a piece of softwaree’re changing our entire file organizational structure, and I don’t know where the files ended up. Those icons look strangee they pixelated? I don’t think the engineers had an opportunity to sign off on this. Are we building this in Angular? I hearat doesn’t work on the iphone. It needs to be responsive. Is it going to be a native app? Did we test this with enougople? What’s the price point? How do we know people will pay that much? What are the leads for schools that might wanbuy this? Do we have a relationship with a partner school? Do we need a relationship with a partner school? I still don

nderstand what this does. We need to eliminate that feature because it scares our flagship customer. That’s the mosportant feature, so we shouldn’t remove it. Make it yellow. People can’t read yellow. Is it accessible? Do we have guideliner colors that make it accessible? Did you check FERPA laws to make sure that we’re in compliance? What if no one adopts it




How do you know it will work?




What are the requirements?




What’s our cloud strategy?




OMFG

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“An artifact gives us a frameworkin order to exchange ideas.

An artifact is a negotiation.”

— Kevin McDonaldPartner, argo design

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Iteration Critique ConstraintsCritique Iteration CritiqueConstraints IterationConstraints

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Make the first artifact yourselfin order to help your team tame ambiguity.

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Iteration CritiqueConstraints

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“A constraint comes from an unexpected discovery over the course of a project. A

requirement is an onerous edict that is placed on us and stifles our creativity."

— Ben FullertonDesign Director, Nike

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“Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to

recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working

within these constraints.”

— Charles EamesDesigner

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This is the problem we are trying to solve.

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Help them see and articulate constraints to frame the problem.

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Drive a

VISION

Acknowledge

FEELINGSTame

AMBIGUITY

Let them run

AMOK

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Let them run

AMOK

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INSPIRATIONPASSIONDRIVE


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RULESREQUIREMENTSPRECEDENT


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Rules, unlike constraints,destroy creativity.

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“We were designing the Embedded Media Player, and we decided to see how porn

sites handle media playback. We blurred the people and did a pinup. We didn't

realize that when you take a few steps back you can still see everything, even when a

blur was applied.”

— Mike Albers, Founder, W12 studios & Former Head of Design, BBC

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When you establish a culture with no rules, you make magic

(and break a lot of glass).

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Own the consequences.

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Drive a

VISION

Acknowledge

FEELINGS

Let them run

AMOK

Tame

AMBIGUITY

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Drive a

VISION

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But I am not Steve Jobs…

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Setting a vision doesn’t mean you have

The Answer.

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1/

Give your team a reason to go to work

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4-Year Degree (In-State)

4-Year Degree (For-Profit)

4-Year Degree (Out-of-state)

4-Year Degree (Private)

$35,572

$60,520

$88,812

$120,376

Collegeboard Average Published Undergraduate Charges by Sector, 2013-14

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$35,572

$60,520

$88,812

$120,376


$72,400

Tesla Model S

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Six year graduation rate for undergrads in the United States:

59%

US Department of Education

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$35,572

$60,520

$88,812

$120,376


$72,400

Tesla Model S

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4-Year Degree (In-State),

6 years

4-Year Degree (For-Profit),

6 years

4-Year Degree (Out-of-state),

6 years

4-Year Degree (Private), 6 years

$53,358

$90,780

$133,218

$180,564


$72,400

Tesla Model S

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© 2017 Modernist Studio Collegeboard Average Published Undergraduate Charges by Sector, 2013-14

4-Year Degree (In-State),

6 years

4-Year Degree (For-Profit),

6 years

4-Year Degree (Out-of-state),

6 years

4-Year Degree (Private), 6 years

$53,358

$90,780

$133,218

$180,564

$72,400

Tesla Model S

$156,070

Ocean Front in Grand

Bahama

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“There was one page that explained how your student loans would be forgiven –

the only thing it said is if you die. It didn’t make me feel great.”

— Sara, Environmental Studies major

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Feeling pressure

Feeling alone

Feeling uninspired

Feeling overwhelmed

Can’t get required classes

Don’t know what classes to pick

Don’t see a path to completion

Can’t fit it in their schedule

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There is an opportunity to help students identify their interests, graduate on time, and get a job.

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“Show them the data... Show them why there's a reason to believe.”

— Ivo StivoricSenior Leadership Team, Google X

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Constantly use real data to reinforce why their work matters.

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2/

Frame the strategy, not the solution

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1 Students have no mental model of how a short-term lifestyle decision has long-term financial consequence, and make irresponsible and uninformed spending decisions that they later regret.

2 Students view their academic journey as a linear path, and so they start thinking about their job prospects only when it is too late to make important changes to their course of study.

3 Because students aren’t aware of their passions and interests, they don’t see a connection between their developing skills and a fulfilled life. As a result, they lose interest in their courses of study and change majors or drop out of school entirely.

Self Discovery

Advisement

Alumni & Mentorship

Majors &Programs

Jobs &Careers

Finances

?

?

?

Schedule &Planning

Students feel that their academic journey is out of their control –and in many respects, it is.

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We will help students take control of their educational experience.

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“You have to speak to it in a way that’s sufficiently visualized that the designer can tell

what you are asking for. But not so determinant that you are simply

turning them into a set of hands.”

— Mark RolstonFounder, Argo design &

former Chief Creative Officer, frog design

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Visualize the strategyjust enough to set a trajectory.

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3/

Constantly tell the retrospective story

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We promise to empower students to take control of

their educational experience.

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Iteration Critique ConstraintsCritique Iteration CritiqueConstraints IterationConstraints

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JOB GENIE

What’s most important to you?

MONEY POWER IMPACT FREEDOM

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JOB GENIE



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JOB GENIE



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“The tricky part of being a leader is that you have to get people to follow you,

get people to support the ideas or values you are trying to move forward.”

— Rachel HinmanSenior Manager, Trulia

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Make the story seem perfect.

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Acknowledge

FEELINGS

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Acknowledge

FEELINGSTame

AMBIGUITY

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Let them run

AMOK

Acknowledge

FEELINGSTame

AMBIGUITY

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Let them run

AMOKDrive a

VISION

Acknowledge

FEELINGSTame

AMBIGUITY

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Drive aVISION

Describe the impactFrame the strategyTell the story

AcknowledgeFEELINGS

Hold group critiquesBuild trustMake team artifacts

TameAMBIGUITY

Make a thingFrame the problemArticulate constraints

Let them runAMOK

Let them playRemove hierarchy Own the consequences

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- thanks!

www.themoderniststudio.com

Documents

CREATIVE CLARITY IN THE MIDST OF AMBIGUITY...Did we test this with enoug ople? What’s the price point? How do we know people will pay that much? What are the leads for schools that